Snow and the camel's back

The latest run of snow was the limit as far as I was concerned.  For some reason, I missed the weather forecasts and only realized it was coming when I was food shopping and the shop was packed and the milk and bread shelves decidedly depleted.  Even then I wasn't expecting quite so much - about 4 inches and it still hasn't totally cleared from the garden! 

Grand-daughter's new cot had been delivered here the day before and they needed it in Worcester that weekend, so, bravely, R came to collect it and drove their small car down into our cul-de-sac.  Getting it back up and out onto the main road proved almost impossible.  We cleared snow and packed ice quite a way up the path, but at the top it had built up into a solid wall.  Fortunately, a neighbour with a large 4x4 came home while we were trying and, having borrowed a tow rope from another neighbour, pulled the car out and up to the main road. 

Even H had to agree this really was the straw that broke the camel's back and we really couldn't be so stuck every time it snowed - especially now it means that Daughter would have to drive over in snow to collect prescriptions or do shopping and that would mean bringing Grand-daughter out on bad roads in freezing weather.  So, I have tracked down a 4WD version of the car we had before the current one.  We both agreed that it was no longer necessary to worry about taking M and the wheelchair anywhere.  She no longer wishes to go out for pleasure and if she needed to go to the hospital we could get a wheelchair carrying taxi which would be much easier, and she'd enjoy patronising the driver.

I collected the car yesterday and H has gone out in it - I'm waiting somewhat in trepidation for him to return as he wasn't able to try it, so if he hates it ........  Anyway, I don't expect it to snow now we're prepared, though the sleety stuff coming down as I speak could turn that way - it's very cold.

I couldn't resist this photo of a camel in the snow, it looks like a stately way to travel. 

It would seem that camels, with their large padded feet, are quite happy on snow - Bactrian camels come from Mongolia where temperatures can drop to -40.  Even in high Summer temperatures, some snow there never melts and they eat it for moisture.  So perhaps the snow would not have broken the camel's back after all!

We had a quiet Easter - Grand-daughter was visiting her other Grandma and Grandad in Wales where they live at the seaside. I can see they are going to be very popular when she gets to an age for playing on the beach with a bucket and spade, but the journey is a bit lengthy for a person of not quite six months.  She was delighted to see us (and the cat) when she got back and spent a happy morning playing, sleeping and even having a bottle sitting on Grandpa while Parents shopped and had some time to themselves.  Time flies doesn't it? She's already just about sitting up unaided and starting on solid food and would like to be more mobile.  Pictures of other babies are a favourite now - luckily knitting patterns are full of them, and seeing another real baby causes much excitement.  The cat is another new amusement and he resignedly puts up with inept stroking and shrieks of joy when he enters the room.  I think he enjoyed his quiet short holiday with us while they were away!

Now we're back to normal - whatever that means around here.  And for those who have said they've been missing such things, a short Conversation with M:

Easter Monday

M: Have you been out?  Is there a lot of traffic?

J: Only to the Flea fair, it was very crowded and very cold.

M:  I expect lots of people went away for Easter despite the weather.  I expect they went somewhere warmer if the could.

J: Probably, if they could afford it.

M: Still, that wouldn't affect the roads, would it?  They would have gone by Airmail.

I hope the postal system withstood the strain!

Miscellaneous thoughts for March.....

This charming girl has moved into the house next door to our French bakers.  The builders working on the house tell me she loves tea and they can't put a mug down because she drinks it.  She wouldn't talk to me the first time but she's considering now whether I might be worth notice now I've been past several times!   She reminds me so much of the lovely St Bernards we used to have.

Grand-daughter has been frequently in residence, and toys, spare clothes and other acoutrements have drifted into the house and accrued in the conservatory and spare bedroom.   Time for blogging has been rather limited - hampered too by the lack of phototgraphy taking place.   March seems to be racing past and Easter is on the horizon and I don't really feel I've got past February yet!

Indulged in a delivery of these last week as we needed cheering up - we can pretend we're able to escape to Harrogate and Betty's tearooms.  It's really nice to get something delicious delivered and this odd, cold weather begs a nice teatime treat.  I know I could make rock cakes or scones - and I do - but sometimes you just want to sit down with an old film and something warm and comforting and put your feet up.  I had a nasty cold which everyone else has now had.  Of course M's is much worse than ours (not) and she has asked for anti-biotics which the Dr has given to shut her up I think.


It's odd that I never blog about cooking considering I do so much of it. Is it because I never think of photographing dishes before they are eaten or because I nearly always make daily meals at the last possible minute, at speed and using whatever's to hand.  M has decreed that evening sandwiches are redundant and she now wants tea at 4.00 p.m.  - which must include cake.  The main problem was that she declared this edict at 3.50p.m. on a day when no-one had time to shop or bake (I sometimes think she images the cupboards to be stocked like a supemarket to fulfill her every whim.)  Husband and I deliberately don't have cake everyday - especially since I started the 5:2 diet, and, of course, I was fully stocked with her prefered sandwich fillings.  So I'm afraid she gets bought cake more often than homemade, and at least H and I aren't tempted.  She wouldn't eat a Fat Rascal so that's definitely a treat for us.  Daughter's partner won't eat dried fruit or spice so she loves it if we have fruit cake or buns.




Like most of us I should imagine, we have to be careful with our finances.  We do eat meat, though not in quantity, and most of what we eat is cooked from scratch.  I tend to cook in batches to make best use of the oven space and try to tweak leftovers to make a slightly different meal the next time round.  As I've mentioned before, M's meals can leave us with a weird selection of small bits which tend to land up in a tomato sauce over pasta.  The worse problem I find is adjusting quantity.  I hate any kind of food waste, most of what I buy is mercifully free of use by dates as it comes either via the veg box or local butchers etc., so I don't mind using up wrinkly veg and trust to the smell and look of food to tell if it's useable.  But sometimes I take my eye off the ball and find forgotten pots of yoghurt or ends of cheese lurking at the back of the fridge. H has an annoying habit of telling me what's in the fridge when it's certainly not about to go off, or 'using up' things in a spirit of martyrdom which I'd earmarked for a certain dish. Last week he had toast because he thought the loaf I'd bought especially to make bread and butter pudding was going hard, and opened a tin of pineapple I was going to use to make a pineapple upside down cake as I must have meant it for M's lunch?   We're having fish tonight - though I'd much sooner eat the chicken casserole I made this morning.  I shall have mine with salad and add dauphinoise potatoes to H's as I'm on a fast day.  The casserole will last the weekend, I expect, even if I give M some for lunch, H is out for lunch tomorrow and dinner on Sunday.  I hope the pork joint that came today will do most of next week once cooked allowing that I'm out for lunch on Tues - actually going to visit a cousin in Bristol, but daughter is staying the night on Wednesday.  Monday and Thursday will have to be fast days next week. I wonder if the sausages I bought before I realised H was going to be out will fit into the freezer - I was going to make scotch eggs to take on Tuesday but Cousin insists she can manage lunch although she's hobbling around on crutches.  I seem to spend an awful lot of my time thinking about food !

Hope you'll all have a lovely weekend. x

Just don't eat the Turkish Delight.....

So here we are yet again in Narnia - we still have the gas lamps to prove it, but as the nearest one is too far away to walk to in the falling snow, have a look here, and here, if you don't believe me!

I'm willing to concede that the snow is very pretty at the moment - it's all over the trees and roofs but not settling on the roads and paths - my kind of snow.  Just in case, I did get out this morning to buy bread, and was lucky to have enough time to have coffee with Judith from Relatively Retiring blog and meet two of her friends.  She had a woodburning stove going so it was nice and cosy, and I was reluctant to leave, but 'the schedule' called!

It's actually snowing again now but very wet so I don't think we'll be snowed up at the moment.  The grey sky has leached all the colour out of the landscape  - these aren't black and white photos.

I'm working up the energy to go out into the garden to put a new baffle on the bird feeder (the old one was smashed when the pole fell over in the last lot of high wind. The squirrel is eating so much of the food the birds are really missing out, just when they need it most.

Hope it's warmer and less snowy where you are - unless snow's your thing, in which case please have some of ours :-) .  If you want to see real snow, have a look on Amanda Soule's blog Soulemama.  I'm so relieved we haven't had these blizzard conditions here.  Keep safe you people in the US.

Eventually saw the back of the snow on Sunday morning, thank goodness.  I've always got plenty to do at home but I was glad to escape to the antiques fair at the showground for a good mooch around.  I didn't buy anything as I'd been hitting the sales online while snowed up - boots, cardigan, waterproof jacket from Landsend;  new pillows from another site and some books from The Bookpeople (I was spending Christmas money so I don't feel too guilty and I did save on petrol!).

Yesterday I had an unexpected day out with Daughter as I was supposed to babysit but her meeting was cancelled.  We shopped, had a nice lunch and spent a little on Grand-daughter, so a very satisfactory day, but today I'm in catch-up mode.

If you are a reader of Jill's blog, Third Age Musings , you may already have read about Gretel Parker (Middle of Nowhere blog) who has sadly lost her partner of 21 years, Andy, just at the point where they had at last bought their own home.  Andy died without leaving a will and Gretel has no family support system so is in a very vulnerable situation.  Her friends are fundraising for her here.  Please help if you can even if it is just spreading the word about the campaign on your blogs or facebook.  It is a desperately sad that this should happen to Gretel.  The laws governing intestacy are complicated where they concern unmarried couples and, I believe, need review in this day and age where marriage is less the norm than even 40 years ago.  The common perception is that money goes to the state but it's much more likely to go to distant relatives - there is no provision as far as I know for unmarried partners. Whether a partner inherits a property which they share depends on how the property was registered -hopefully Gretel and Andy's property was registered appropriately by their solicitor but that won't of course pay the mortgage.  

Off now to sort out M's prescriptions - how soon things go back normal - for us at least.

Our car has been snowed in since last Friday.  I thought about putting it up on the main road - we can see it from our front windows and traffic has been merrily going along it, at speed, since Friday morning - but I thought I wouldn't need to get out.  Unfortunately, the food delivery I was counting on, from the firm that promises to deliver whatever the weather, didn't and by the time they let me know it was too late to start digging cars out and the local shop had been stripped bare. 

Regular long-time readers of this blog will know that I'm fanatical about being prepared for snow since we were stuck for three weeks two years ago, so we weren't about to starve but I did feel very let down.   If it were just H and I here, we could probably last for some considerable time on just what is lurking in cupboards and freezer - longer still if H was forced to eat pulses and I to eat tinned mackerel - but M has no flexibility.  Meals must follow a set pattern - porridge for breakfast, meat and veg for lunch and sandwiches for supper.  Certainly no pasta or rice or couscous or polenta would substitute for potatoes, and bread is an absolute necessity. She eats very small quantities but won't eat the same thing two days running so we have lots of odds and ends which we constantly recombine into different meals. Sandwiches are equally limited - ham, beef, cheese or marmalade, no pickle, mustard or mayonnaise.  You can imagine that H and I often have rather strange meals to use up all the left overs that won't keep another couple of days and the fridge is full of little bowls of veg, sauce etc.

Daughter, as usual, came to the rescue - I was hoping to avoid asking her, but she had to shop and the roads between us were clear.  Fortunately, R came with her so shopping and grand-daughter was safely transported down the slopes from the main road  without mishap.

With no distractions to keep me from the kitchen, soups, stews and even cake have been made to make absolutely sure that nothing in the fridge passes its sell by date or goes off.  Daughter appeared again yesterday having collected one of M's prescription and I was able to give her a hearty lunch of sausages in a casserole and blueberry cake.  In the interim two days Grand-daughter has learnt how to laugh - such a lovely sound!

If it was absolutely necessary, I could probably dig the car out later today - the lane is passable at the top end and I have some grit stored in the garage.  I did check the car battery was Ok this morning.  Having only bought this car because M couldn't get into the last one, I'm now seriously considering a 4X4.  M refuses to get in the new car anyway and would probably need specialized transport now if she needed to be taken anywhere.  They do a 4x4 version of the car we had before - now belonging to Daughter - I just need to persuade H!

Meanwhile, I've nearly finished a baby cardigan that's been on the needles for ages - I stopped midway to knit this strange garment ( a sort of hooded poncho) which has been very popular with a small person in this chilly weather, and being chunky wool was very quick.

I also knitted this a few weeks ago as Miss hates putting on things with sleeves!

The sewing pile still lurks looking resentful, so perhaps I'll just stay put until the snow melts - and hope my veg order comes this week!  Hope you're all warm and safe.

No Snow (yet?)

 To do the end of year filing
 Make sure I've got the information for end-of-year accounts
 And anything else financial that ends in December
 Send some forgotten emails :-o.
 Buy towels in the sales
 Order stationery
 Finish up all the Christmas goodies so we can get back to healthy eating
 Sort clothes, books etc. for charity shop - and take them round*
 Get the car serviced


Well, eight out of nine isn't bad going and I did do a lot of other things as well - including my usual mad stock of fridge and cupboard with M's comestibles in case it snows! The plumbing problems also seem to have been fixed - the boiler problem took three attempts but the leaking radiator mysteriously fixed itself.

The sprinkling of snow we had last night has gone and it's bright sunshine outside - though cold.  I've got a lamb stew cooking in the oven and the smell drifting up from the kitchen is wonderful.  Resisted the urge to make a pudding or a cake whilst the oven is on and roasted some veggies for soup instead and a whole load of beetroot.  I've got a piece of gammon soaking which can go in the oven later.  I must replace the slow cooker which died just before Christmas, but my stick blender fell apart last week so that's the most important purchase. We use one to puree fruit to hide in M's breakfast porridge.  I shall buy a sturdier one this time with one of those chopping attachments.

The clearing up continues - I have sorted some clothes and books and squashed a whole load of boxes to take to the dump but I was out more than I intended last week.  If we get snow this week I shall be quite pleased to be forced to stay in as I've got several sewing and knitting projects on the go.

I'm toying with the idea of buying a tablet (with my Christmas money).  There's an unused ipad here belonging to M but I'm not sure what I would buy.  I changed back to a desk top computer last year because I was doing some things that wanted a large screen, so I tend to use my very small smart phone to read blogs and send emails when I'm downstairs.  It's OK but a bit fiddly - hence the mis-spelled comments lacking sense which sometimes appear on other people's blogs!  It's not that I'm too idle to come up the two flights of stairs to my computer but I miss being able to do things whilst talking to H or daughter in the sittingroom, and I find I'm printing more things like recipes or patterns.

Hope you're all warm, safe and not snowed up, I'm off back downstairs to pick up my knitting!



Stop press * Charity shop drop accomplished.  Snow now falling heavily!

New beginnings

Today feels like the start of the new year to me.  Daughter has a birthday at the start of January, so the present buying, special food cooking, and celebrating last past New year's day, and this is the first day we've been without visitors, preparing for visitors etc.

The year started well, the gasman said the fault in the boiler, which has been leaking, wasn't terminal, but just after he'd gone the bathroom radiator started leaking instead!  It's stopped now the radiator's got hot again but leaked over night in sympathy with the boiler which is waiting for a new part.  Still, it's all containable with bowls and towels but this house is ill-fated when it comes to anything to do with water.

Grand-daughter has been having a busy time over the holidays with three overnight stops here, and visits to and from other family and friends.  Christmas present were well appreciated - especially the pink bunny from Grandpa and her wardrobe is sorted for months to come.  Seeing her playing in her 'jungle gym' H and I realised how few things daughter had had at the same age - a couple of cuddly toys, a rattle, a teething ring.  Times change, and we were very young parents without much spare money.  Our friends were in a similar postition and we aren't blessed with a large family.  Grandparents had helped towards large items like prams but apart from hand knits and practical sheets and blankets she wasn't showered with gifts.  Anyway, she was an eternally cheery baby so I don't think she lacked for amusement and entertainment.  These 'older' parents with careers and savings behind them and friends whose families have grown or have no children certainly have material advantages, but the love and committment is the same - and they still lack sleep! 

So, are we making resolutions?  Perhaps not, the list would be too long!  This week I'm trying:-
 To do the end of year filing
 Make sure I've got the information for end-of-year accounts
 And anything else financial that ends in December
 Send some forgotten emails :-o.
 Buy towels in the sales
 Order stationery
 Finish up all the Christmas goodies so we can get back to healthy eating
 Sort clothes, books etc. for charity shop - and take them round
 Get the car serviced

Well, if I get that lot done, the boiler and the radiator mended and still find time to deal with M, shop, clean, and see Daughter and Grand-daughter and blog, in a week when H is teaching and has other committments ....... We shall see!  Hope your new year has started well.